READY, SET, INVEST!

Scott Woodley of Tutora tells us why he hopes his company, Tutora, are investment ready and how Freshly Squeezed have helped them get there.

The team at Freshly Squeezed recently asked us if we were ‘investment ready’? Well, we’re about to find out!

On the 31th of January, our pitch went live on crowdfunding site Crowdcube (check it out here) as we seek to raise £350k of investment. Having already raised £150k for a 10% equity share in April last year, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to successfully raise once more, but the recent advice we’ve received from Freshly Squeezed has been incredibly valuable in sharpening our focus.

We’d previously come across the events management company through the courses they ran in Sheffield, our favourite being the growth hacks workshop they ran last year. This gave us several ideas which led to an immediate boost in our sales. Whilst this in itself was incredibly valuable, the courses have gained a great reputation from founders in the city, and have now become an excellent place to network with other founders, to exchange tips and advice.

In recently researching the needs of the Northern tech scene for the Investment Ready course she ran, Celina from Freshly Squeezed came to us to discuss the areas we felt were lacking in support for Northern businesses.

Although we had been fortunate enough to secure the backing of some fantastic angels, we saw how other businesses in the region struggled to gain the attention from investors their London counterparts might have already received. Celina helped to identify several potential methods of improving our own routes to funding and discussed with us the way in which we could hone our pitch. Taking her advice, we’ve been able to gain far more impetus for our upcoming raise and feel well-placed to hit our target amount.

But what is Tutora I hear you ask… Well it is an online platform which helps parents find the best local tutors. We cover every subject and age, with over 6,000 tutors covering the whole of the UK.

I came up with the idea while working as a primary school teacher in Sheffield. Parents used to ask me to recommend a tutor but I never knew where to look and ended up becoming a tutor myself – really just to help a few of the families. From there it snowballed. I saw just how many parents this was impacting, so I spoke to Mark, who was a friend from school and working as a Technology Analyst at a major investment firm.

We launched Tutora just under 18 months ago, but we’re already one of the largest tuition companies in the UK. It’s been amazing how quickly we’ve grown, but I think that’s because of how well we solve the problems both students and tutors face. It’s great to be able to help so many people, but we’d like to do more.

We raised £150k in April last year, which has really allowed us to scale, but the additional funding we’re looking to secure will hopefully lead the way to us becoming the largest tuition company in the UK over the net 12 months.

Securing investment is a crucial focus for the continuing development of the Northern powerhouse, as identified by Tech North. We hope to lead the way for Sheffield in the forthcoming raise – so watch this space!